The best films and series to watch on Netflix UK

Lee Jung-jae in Squid Game

(Image credit: FlixPix / Alamy)

last updated 15 July 2025

The third and final season of "Squid Game" has finally dropped, breaking Netflix viewing records by amassing over 60 million views in the first three days of its release. But that's not the only bingeworthy show on the streaming platform. Here are some of the best films and series to add to your watchlist.

Squid Game

Hwang Dong-hyuk's "thrilling, gorgeous and satirically astute" dystopian drama about a group of people in heavy debt who risk their lives playing children's games in a deadly competition is back for its final series, said Leila Latif in Empire. The third instalment of the hit Korean production "retains the qualities that made it a global behemoth". Filled with the "cruel twists" and "poptastic visuals" fans have come to expect, it will be remembered as "one of the darkest and most gripping" shows on Netflix.

This powerful documentary "does so much more than re-tread narratives" the media has already covered, said Killian Faith-Kelly in GQ. The feature-length film "zooms out" from the appalling tragedy that saw 72 people lose their lives and examines the implications that reach "far beyond the wreck of a west London tower block". As well as shining a light on the stories of individual victims and witnesses, it starkly examines the "readily available lessons" that were ignored, and the figures who should be held responsible for the entirely preventable fire. "Essential viewing."

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For those hunting for their next "White Lotus", Tina Fey (as the marvellously "uptight" Kate) and the rest of "The Four Seasons" cast has just the solution, said Lucy Mangan in The Guardian. "Part 'Gilmore Girls' on HRT or 'Golden Girls' with men", the drama follows four couples whose traditional quarterly group holidays are disrupted when Nick (Steve Carell) announces that he is leaving his wife, Anne (Kerri Kenney-Silver) and embarks on a relationship with a younger woman. "Farce and heartbreak" ensue. Despite gags about middle-age sex lives ("even in a throuple someone's got to clean the air fryer"), the couples embrace life in a changing world, rather than raging against it. "Rest your aching bones and enjoy."

The seventh season of dystopian drama "Black Mirror" is "achingly" on-brand, said Chris Bennion in The Telegraph, "and it's brilliant." Its first episode returns to the "iPhones but bad" blueprint of its heyday, reinvigorating a series which in recent seasons seemed to have lost its way. While many of the plotlines reinforce Brooker's reputation as a "misanthrope" – an incident involving "some experimental brain tech" turns out to be a bitter indictment of US healthcare – the season surpasses itself with two "beautiful love stories". While we could all probably come up with "a hundred 'Black Mirror' ideas in the pub", only Brooker could execute them with such "panache, heart and soul".

When DI Kat Donovan (Rosalind Eleazar, who plays Louisa in "Slow Horses") finally decides to date again, 11 years after her fiancé Josh (Ashley Waters) abandoned her, she is shocked to find that her first dating app match is him. This ninth Harlan Coben novel adaptation by Netflix has "enough action and twists to keep you watching until the bitter end", said Hayley Spencer in London's The Standard. It has all the best bits of its crime drama predecessors: "cliffhangers, gratuitous gore and juicy family revelations". And with a cast including Lenny Henry, Matt Willis and Steve Pemberton, you'll want to "gobble" it up.

The follow-up to the wildly successful first season of dystopian drama "Squid Game" was well worth waiting three years for, said Tim Glanfield in The Times. Player 456, Seong Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae), is back and has been busy spending his $45.6 billion (£25 million) winnings on hiring people to track down the baddies behind the bloodthirsty annual tournament before more people die. This "isn't going to be a rinse-and-repeat exercise – this is a drama with a story to tell, and it's only just getting started". Watch it before the third season drops later this year.

This "intriguing" movie about a "vibrant new post-apocalyptic world" has been in the works for a long time, said T3. Millie Bobby Brown and Chris Pratt team up as they make their way across an America destroyed years ago by a war with robots. The supporting cast is "unreal", with robots voiced by the likes of Woody Harrelson and Brian Cox. Directors Joe and Anthony Russo worked on "The Avengers" blockbusters, so hold out for some big-scale storytelling.

Paramount's hit show, which is into its fifth season, has come to Netflix for the first time. This "addictive drama" is "a bit like 'Succession'", said Good Housekeeping, but with "a bit more action and set in the American West". The Dutton family and their Yellowstone ranch are at the heart of it and, "as the largest contiguous ranch in the US", it is fiercely protected by its owner John (Kevin Costner), who will do "whatever it takes to protect his land" from greedy developers.